this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2024
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Technology
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Ohh, absolutely, or rather, it is the past. I mean, internet was built that way, as a resilient federation of networks and protocols. Lemmy could be seen as us just rediscovering emails after the tech giants almost succeeded in killing it. We should approach all the services we use by asking ourselves basic sustainability questions:
is that thing opensource?
self hostable?
does it federate/interoperate with equivalent services?
can I pull my data out of it/relocate to another provider on a whim?
if not, is this a trustworthy and ethical business?
is it profitable?
are there open financial records available showing where/for what the money is going?
is it at risk of being acquired?
is it subject to foreign/unlawful interference
Etc Etc
Exactly! I miss those days, where search engines mostly returned small websites with useful info.
This is actually kinda tricky with ActivityPub-based services like Lemmy and Mastodon. Sure, you can move provider, but you lose your original username since usernames are tightly coupled to the instance you're using.
BlueSky's approach is better. Currently they're the only provider using their protocol, but they have plans to decentralize. You can use your own domain as your username, regardless of which provider you use. If you move provider, your username can move with you, you just need to update some DNS records to point to the new provider.